#Occupy

When Facebook gives me more news than the Dayton Daily news, we’re all in trouble. Never mind the fact that I’m paying $9.95 a month for their newspaper-on-crutches, but now they are offering it for $19.95 for a full year of digital access. Nothing says desperate like knocking your price down to next to nothing. Click bait is their “new strategy” posting tidbits on Facebook, hoping to get you to hit their paywall. Exactly the behavior Facebook is trying to minimize. But, that’s all moot.

“I stand…-With Eric Shappard (SIC- should be Sheppard) and the preservation of 1st Amendment rights
-For all men and woman in service to this country
-For the accountability of media and other social institutions
-Justice, equity, tolerance, and diversity
-Upon the belief higher learning should provoke students to question social norms, mainstream values, and power structures
-The ‘American” spirit, is a revolutionary spirit- On the American flag because there’s nothing more American than that!

Unbelievably, not a single local “news source” had either the protester’s name, or even were able to verify his status as a WSU student. If my Facebook friends are to be believed, yes, he’s a WSU student.

His first mistake was thinking that WSU students would know who Eric Sheppard is- and what that has to do with the American flag. Sheppard was protesting at Valdosta State University – standing on a flag to make a statement about the treatment of black men in this nation who are being gunned down. A publicity seeking veteran, Michelle Manhart, decided to do something about it- going to campus with her daughter filming- and stealing the flag. Amazingly, the cops did the right thing and arrested her and returned the flag. The video pushes buttons and the right wing nut jobs had a field day praising the veteran for her actions, albeit it turns out she had posed in Playboy on active duty and even posed nude later for PETA with… wait… an American flag.

Symbolic speech is powerful stuff. The Nazis understood it well. So did the Ku Klux Klan. Burning books, burning flags, burnings of effigies, ISIS is justifying its atrocities by using orange jump suits for its victims- to symbolize our detaining “their people” in Guantanamo bay. I actually had to explain to one person on Facebook why symbolic speech can be more effective than a standard protest, which in this country is usually measured by numbers- hence we have things like “the million man march.” Usually, in America, you need a herd to be heard in public. Of course, in private, you just need a lot of money and I guarantee you access to anyone you want in Washington, D.C.

The problem with symbols is they don’t always mean the same thing to everybody. Maybe that’s why early religions had such an issue with idolatry. And you have to remember, when the religions started out, most of this wasn’t written- it was spoken, since universal literacy and the printing press were far off in the future. I still find the symbol of Christianity being a cross to be odd- to celebrate Jesus, memorialize the brutal way that he died. Do we, as Americans use guns as a symbol to memorialize and remember Abraham Lincoln, JFK or Martin Luther King? No.

Another post on Facebook had this image going around- another view of what the American Flag stands for today:

The article it linked to, was about how other countries don’t understand America, or how Americans don’t seem to understand what living in a “free society” really means. The reactions to these flag protests, full of vitriol, the grandstanding- over a symbol, taking over the conversation, when most Americans are living on the edge of survival- paycheck to paycheck, with a safety net that’s constantly being withdrawn inch by inch. We prefer the dream of success to the reality we live in. Thinking that we can all become an NBA star, a millionaire if we only work hard, or President of the United States, is so far from reality- if we weren’t all so seduced by this fantasy, any right minded psychologist would call us delusional.

There is a lot to protest about in this country. A few years back the Occupy movement tried to bring a focus to the wrongs of the wizards of Wall Street who have robbed our country blind and brought the “world’s strongest economy” to its knees, yet, the Dow continues to climb beyond any recognizable relevance, the Fed continues to print money like candy- and the richest Americans are getting richer at a record pace, while the rest of us are being asked to “pay more of our share” to keep this house of cards from falling.

The flag, which we pledge allegiance to so easily, is a symbol. Symbols mean different things to different people. Our country is supposed to be one where different people can have free discussions over issues- my only request is, let’s start having the discussion about ones that matter. I agree and support the actions of the Wright State protester- and you should too, if you truly believe in what our country’s founders said when they declared our independence in 1776.

The Boston Marathon bombing will most likely be solved by analyzing thousands of photos, video footage, and a lot of difficult police work. This morning the New York Times tells us that video gives us the first clues:

In the first major break in the hunt for the Boston Marathon bomber, F.B.I. personnel on Wednesday found security video clips that showed a man they believe may have played a role in planting the explosives that killed three people and injured more than 170 on Monday.The videos also showed at least a handful of others whom the authorities want to question, either because of what they appear to be doing in the video or their proximity to the blasts, a senior law enforcement official said.

The official said the authorities were trying to boil down the number of people of interest in the videos and would then decide whether to ask the public’s help in locating them.

Of course, it’s not like on the TV show 24 where they could find and track a car in real time from cameras all over LA, but, by reconstructing the scene over time, a clearer picture of who done it will emerge. Because of the high profile of the crime, the FBI will get their man.

Locally, 2 nights ago, someone tried to break into my neighbor Pat’s garage. They broke the glass, but didn’t get through the screen. Had they been successful, the door had a deadbolt, double keyed. It’s just a sign of the times. My own garage has plywood screwed to the inside of two windows that were broken repeatedly by thieves, I don’t like it, but the break ins have stopped. The next day, after Pat’s attempt, we all asked his neighbor, Larry, did his camera’s show anything? They have before. We’ve also found who did a hit-skip total of a car thanks to another camera, and saw a woman drive up, walk onto a porch and steal what UPS had left. Cameras aren’t the end-all panacea of solving crimes, but they do help.

Which brings us to the aerial surveillance program proposed in Dayton. There is a small vocal group that’s very opposed to an eye in the sky. Would they be against using surveillance footage of the Boston Marathon bombing to help solve the crime? Doubtful.

Criminals don’t stop doing crime because of fear of getting their picture taken, nor do they stop because they know they can go to jail. For the most part, crime happens because someone didn’t learn the difference between right and wrong, something is broken with their priorities in life, or, they don’t feel as if they have any other options. In this “land of opportunity” one opportunity is to be incarcerated. We have the highest incarceration rate on the planet. Something like one in 31 has spent time in prison. We spend a lot of money keeping people locked away for doing minor crimes, much of it related to drug addiction.

Catching criminals isn’t solving our problems quickly enough, just like having the biggest, baddest military isn’t scaring anyone away from waging terror on us, since a conventional war isn’t really a sane option. If we want to look at the real problems in our country, no surveillance cameras are needed- the real crime is the divisive nature of our economy. On one hand, we have the subsistence population (as Leona Hensley called them, “only the little people pay taxes”) and those who are pocketing, literally billions (without anyone making a connection between our economic mess and the cold hard fact that the giant sucking sound wasn’t Mexico – but Wall Street):

Certainly, plenty of hedge fund titans took home billion-dollar paydays last year despite the fact they lagged the big gains in stocks. For example, Steven A. Cohen, who controls $15 billion in assets at SAC Capital Advisors, which has been under intense scrutiny by government investigators, fell just short of the market’s returns for 2012. His take-home pay, however, was about $1.4 billion, earning him the No. 3 spot among the best-paid hedge fund managers.

If you wonder who robbed your garage, or bombed the Boston Marathon, and want to point fingers- think about a $1.4 billion dollar paycheck, and where it came from? All those foreclosures, that devastated the value of your home? The medical bills and insurance that became too expensive for you to afford? The reason we don’t have cops on our streets and are resorting to spy cams in the sky? The reason we can afford to pay to put dopeheads in prison but not make college affordable- it’s that it’s legal to pay yourself $1.4 Billion a year by manipulating the financial system and screwing the entire county.

Of course, I want the marathon bomber caught and brought to justice, just as much as I want the people who stole my bike and my kids’ bikes to be arrested too- but, I think we often get confused about what crimes are most heinous. Losing faith in our society is the most dangerous possibility, and most of us feel powerless to change it.

Throughout history, when the gap between rich and poor becomes unbearable, usually, a revolution resets the system.

It’s not big brother that should scare you, it’s our brothers and sisters who are not paying attention.

And just for entertainment, here’s a partial report on how much Steven A. Cohen spent buying his freedom from prosecution:

According to the Dayton Daily News, Matt Joseph and Nan Whaley directed the city “public information officer,” Tom Biedenharn, to hold a press conference to talk about the national unemployment rate which is being used as a political football in the presidential race.

Mayor Leitzell sat in the audience and reportedly told the paper that this belonged down the street in Democratic HQ. The city law director, John Danish, and the deputy city manager, Stanley Earley, should both be reprimanded or dismissed for not understanding the difference between politics and government. This is pretty cut and dried.

City Hall is where official city business takes place. Official city business of the commissioners, by charter, is handled at the charter-specified single legal meeting of the week: held on Wednesdays and attended by at least 3 commissioners. To make an official statement- they would need to hold a vote and have at least three votes in support. There is no confusion about what is appropriate or legal here- this partisan political stunt by two little-league commissioners should result in an investigation and some sort of penalty if not criminal charges.

We just went through a long drawn-out discussion on what was allowed in the SB-5/Issue 2 vote- where it was even questioned whether buttons could be worn on city property by employees.The use of Obama campaign graphics in official city business is clearly a partisan party activity.

“I’m talking about two people running for political office and the effects they will have on the city,” said Whaley. “City Hall is a public space.”

Which brings us to the Occupy protesters. Isn’t Courthouse Square a public space? The protesters were talking about two classes of people and one of them is running the country and having a huge effect on the city. If City Hall is “public space”- then, I guess the protesters should just take up residence in the Commission Chambers. Considering I was arrested in that public space by former Mayor (now Congressman) Mike Turner for symbolic political speech protesting proposed guidelines to limit public speech (discussed in an illegal meeting of the commission) I can tell you that Whaley apparently has no clue about what official city business is- and when it’s appropriate to use city resources for political speech. By the same standard, she should be arrested- or at least censured by the other three members of the commission.

Here is a well-measured interview with Mayor Leitzell by David Sparks with the Dayton Informer of our self-proclaimed independent mayor (I believe him- but the endorsement of the Republican party of his campaign is still a question mark) on this topic:

He correctly states that Whaley’s and Joseph’s actions could be interpreted as the beliefs of all Daytonians which is clearly not the case. If nothing else, Whaley and Joseph should be charged personally for rental of the room, salaries of public employees involved in this- including the time wasted fielding questions on the legitimacy of this press release.

If not- let’s occupy the commission chambers. It’s now been declared a public space.

In the last presidential election cycle, over $5 billion was spent on political campaigns. This cycle with the newly allowed superPACs, it could be double that. The mass media will never point out how ludicrous this all is directly, because it’s keeping them alive. If there is one reason to move the elections to July 4 instead of the first Tuesday in November it’s because it’s becoming near impossible for anyone other than politicians to buy media space until after the election and it makes it harder for real businesses that depend on fourth quarter sales to survive to advertise.

The billions don’t come from a majority of voters, a majority of the money comes from the 1%. It’s a voluntary tax on the wealthy who think that buying, I mean donating to, politicians is a better investment than just paying slightly more in income tax and putting this whole system of auctions/elections out of business.

It’s not just the direct political donations either, it’s the entire “lobbying industry” that costs them as well. From the NYT we read how the super rich from other countries come in and buy up politicians as well- despite laws against foreigners donating directly to campaigns:

In the summer of 2009, a Malaysian billionaire took an unexpected interest in a small town in the Catskill Mountains in New York. With little notice, he bought a stake in a racetrack casino where the owners had struggled for more than a decade to develop a gambling complex

It was the first move in a brash attempt by KT Lim, chairman of one of the world’s largest gambling conglomerates, to muscle his way into the potentially lucrative American market. But Mr. Lim’s company, Genting Berhad, did not go it alone.

First, Genting hired a lobbyist named John L. Cordo, who was once on the staff of the Republican majority in the New York Senate. Then, with the company rapidly expanding, it amassed a who’s who of influential lobbyists.

Now, as Genting pursues multibillion-dollar projects in New York City at Aqueduct Racetrack and in Miami, its lobbying offers a primer on how a well-heeled newcomer can make up for its lack of experience and connections in the United States.

Because casino gambling is highly regulated, the industry has long drawn swarms of lobbyists promising to help navigate state capitols….

Christian Goode, a senior Genting executive on the New York and Miami projects, said in an interview that Genting had hired so many lobbyists in those locations because it wanted to participate in the political process “like any other company.”

Mr. Goode declined to discuss the lobbyists’ specific roles. “We are a large multinational company with lots of exposure,” he said. “Things come up from time to time. We just want to make sure we’re properly represented.”…

“Being a relatively unknown Asian company has not been an impediment for Genting in New York or Florida,” said Grant Govertsen, a principal of the Union Gaming Group, a research firm. “More than anything else these days, money talks.”

Gambling critics said Genting’s ability to spend so lavishly on lobbying suggested how much the company stood to gain.

“They intend to soak so much money out of our community that spending millions on local and state government isn’t much more than a rounding error,” said Dan Gelber, a former federal prosecutor in Miami and the chairman of the No Casinos group in South Florida.

In another article in the NYT today, the one tool that can level the playing field in politics, the Internet, is being debated as well. The activists that call themselves “Anonymous” have launched “Operation Hiroshima” to attack those who want to pass SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) by posting private data and smearing those who support it.

The technology industry, including giants like Google and Yahoo, and advocates for Internet freedom say the bills would censor the Internet, stifle free speech and give the government too much power to regulate and shut down web sites in the United States. Both sides have spent millions on lobbying in Washington. But at the grass-roots level, the issue has galvanized Internet activists, who lack lobbying power but have promoted the cause among the online community.

“You take our speech, you take our Internet, you take our Bill of Rights, you take our Constitution, we fight back,” said a monotone voice on a YouTube video posted by Anonymous before the Operation Hiroshima document drop.

Lawmakers and their aides have also been targets. A photograph of a 25-year-old aide for the House Judiciary Committee was superimposed into pornography by a group related to Anonymous, according to another aide who was briefed on security threats to lawmakers and their staffs. “Why can’t they just hire a lobbyist like everyone else?” this aide said.

And the articles on money buying politicians and influence just keeps coming- with Newt Gingrich even calling off the dogs of a “SuperPAC” that is smearing Mitt Romney:

Misleading and exaggerated claims in a film portraying Mitt Romney as a heartless job killer led Newt Gingrich to ask on Friday that the group behind it change or withdraw it, even though Mr. Gingrich is the intended beneficiary of the film….

But the group running the video, the pro-Gingrich “super PAC” Winning Our Future, made no move to alter the work….

By calling for the ads to come down or undergo changes, Mr. Gingrich was potentially getting to have his cake and eat it too, reaping the benefits of attacks that have been nationally branded as false while publicly distancing himself. Yet he also faced the risks of being associated with an attack by a group that has a former close aide, Rick Tyler, as a senior adviser….

But in questioning the advertisements’ accuracy on Friday, Mr. Gingrich was providing an early test of the benefits and risks to political candidates like him who, with little of their own financing, are being sustained by super PACS, which can use unlimited resources to help candidates and attack their opponents as long as the campaigns do not coordinate with them.

So far, these groups are running nearly as many advertisements per day as the candidates themselves, according to an analysis by Kantar Media/CMAG, which reports that they are spending far more than the actual campaigns because they do not get the same discounted rates from stations that candidates get. Winning Our Future is heavily in the mix, having received a $5 million commitment from the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.

Do you get the feeling that it’s not our election anymore? Most of the people I know can’t afford to make $2,500 donations to multiple candidates or hire a lobbyist to try to get their tax burden reduced. Many of the people I know dread the return to $4 a gallon gas, put off going to the doctor because even if they do have insurance, the hassle of the multiple bills coming from three different places overwhelms them.

When we elect a person, we don’t even expect them to be able to work without the support of lobbyists. It seems the entire region believes that somehow we need to pay for the Dayton Development Coalition to tell our elected representatives how to save our collected communities. We’ve got the best politicians money can buy, but their price tag is beyond the average voter’s pay scale.

If we really want to cut taxes on the wealthy, the first one that needs to go is the political tax. Let’s take the money out of politics and just pay the bill to send all voters a printed guide with equal space for every candidate and issue. Give the voter time to study it, research further online and vote by mail (like Oregon does). Let’s implement “Instant runoff voting” so that we skip the long primary season and never ever have to vote against someone, or vote for the lesser of two evils again. Why should anyone ever feel their vote is wasted?

“Principles have no real force except when one is well fed.” Mark Twain

Politicians used to understand this. Promises of a better tomorrow, with jobs, a standard of living higher than it is today- were standard campaign promises. Now, we have “hope” and “change” with no promise whatsoever.

If we likened life to a game of Monopoly– where the goal is to acquire as much money and real-estate as possible, with a finite amount of both (and like it or not- the planet has a finite number of resources in some ways and can only support so many players)- we’ve done a really great job of it.

Just remember this- when you own all the real estate and have all the money when playing Monopoly, game is over.

To start the game again, wealth is redistributed. We start from scratch.

If it’s not and you want to continue to play- someone has to rob the winner to continue.

When the debt load on the 99% combined with banking fees, taxes, gasoline costs, health-care costs, welfare costs and taxes exceed the 99%’s ability to pay- the country goes into crisis. Like it or not- that’s where we are now, we just keep fooling ourselves that “recovery” is happening as one data point or another is manipulated for a government report: unemployment, productivity, factory orders etc.

Congress can’t seem to get our government spending under control- but wants to blame the little guys for the crisis. Yet, when the wizards of Wall Street went belly-up, there was no bankruptcy or foreclosure- just the taxpayers stuck with the bailout bill while the billionaires went off scot-free. Yet, steal food to feed your family- and you’ll go to jail, directly to jail.

The “super-committee” can’t cut its way to financial fixes and even raising taxes on the rich won’t solve the problems. We need systemic changes in the way we distribute wealth in this country- and I’m not talking about socialism. Monopoly is a game with rules- where everyone gets the same deal- the United States has let the rich write the rules to favor them, and it’s made the game so lopsided that we’re all screwed.

What the rich running the country and paying off our politicians haven’t been able to reckon with is the fact that their game of Monopoly gets very boring in the last rounds, when the barons of Park Place with a hotel clean you out and you succumb.

From BusinessWeek:

Somehow it just doesn’t seem right that so many Americans struggle while a handful prospers. What many are missing is the actual impact rising inequality is having on the U.S. economy. Hint: It isn’t good.

Since 1980 about 5 percent of annual national income has shifted from the middle class to the nation’s richest households. That means the wealthiest 5,934 households last year enjoyed an additional $650 billion beyond what they would have had if the economic pie had been divided as it was in 1980, according to Census Bureau data.

The typical U.S. household, meanwhile, has yet to regain the ground it lost during the recession. The median income of $49,445 at the end of 2010 remains a shade below the level reached in 1997, adjusted for inflation. “Income inequality in this country is just getting worse and worse and worse,” says James Chanos, president and founder of money managers Kynikos Associates. “And that is not a recipe for stable growth.”

In the 1960s economists such as the late Arthur M. Okun, who was chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, believed that societies could emphasize equality or growth, not both. Today, when the quality of the workforce plays a larger role in determining who prospers, many economists—including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke—now believe that equality and growth are linked. As Branko Milanovic, a World Bank economist, wrote in September: “Widespread education has become the secret to growth. And broadly accessible education is difficult to achieve unless a society has a relatively even income distribution.”

Thus the growing chasm in the U.S. between the haves and the have-nots has serious consequences. Societies that manage a narrower gap between rich and poor enjoy longer economic expansions, according to research published this year by the International Monetary Fund. Income trends in the U.S. mean that future U.S. expansions could last just one-third as long as in the late 1960s, before the income divide began widening, says economist Jonathan D. Ostry of the IMF. The average postwar economic boom lasted 4.8 years, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. The current expansion, which is just 27 months old, may peter out within a few months. Goldman Sachs (GS) said on Oct. 3 that the U.S. would be “on the edge of recession” by early 2012.

So no matter what the latest news report says, we’re still not going to dig out of debt (and the “super-committee” was only tasked with ending the deficit- with no impact on our national debt) without making some fundamental changes.

While the #Occupy movement isn’t giving us a soundbite solution to fix the system- they are doing a great job of clearly stating the problem: the 1% are collecting all the money and real estate at an increased pace and without stopping them, no one will want to play monopoly (life as we know it) anymore.

When people aren’t well fed- the rule of law goes out the door, people. You’ve been warned before.

What’s even more discouraging is that our nation still thinks we have the right to sit in judgment on other countries- telling them to allow peaceful protests, advocating freedom of speech, protesting how their elections are rigged. We’re total hypocrites:

Obviously, what we call for in other countries isn’t what we call for here.

Besides the need to stop selling our elected offices to the highest bidder, it’s time to reevaluate and reorganize our entire country if we want to continue to exist as a sovereign nation. That’s right- the current system has us dangerously close to being owned, lock, stock and barrel by the Chinese who have more of our money than we do.

Restoring banking controls that were enacted after the last great depression would be a good start. But, we need to look at what’s critical right now- jobs that pay enough to continue our standard of living.

It’s not about taxing the rich, as much as it is about tying great rewards directly to job creation. It’s time to reward people for employing U.S. citizens and paying them well- instead of for gambling on financial markets.

When a U.S. company like Standard and Poor’s or Moody’s has the ability to destroy a sovereign nation with the stroke of a pen by downgrading their credit rating- instead of the old-fashioned method of having a standing army invade and play capture the flag- we really should be reassessing the need for a military at all- unless it it is to subdue people from living as they wish.

The “Wealth of Nations” is a farce anymore. The entire value of a countries’ social capital, natural resources and even the infrastructure is nothing more than a piece of property on a global Monopoly board- with values set by a banker. Does this seem wrong to you?

The financial “instruments” that bankers have created, the transaction models that have been authorized by our corporate puppet politicians have destroyed the entire concept of money as a tool to engage in trade. It’s now a weapon and the most powerful people on the planet aren’t presidents, generals, prime ministers or kings- but the money brokers who seem to be outside the control of any country- or governing body.

While you may not know what a “Ladbroke’s betting slip” is, the picture I took of a posting in London outside the Occupy LSX camp next to St. Paul’s 2 days before the camp was dismantled explains the reason the system collapsed- and it wasn’t because of the bad loans to poor people, it was how those bad loans were monetized after they were made.

If you are paying attention to Congress right now, we see a role reversal taking place- with Republicans against extending the payroll tax cuts putting more dollars in the hands of the people who still make their money through a paycheck (the 1% make their money through financial transactions). The Republicans claim that taxing the 1% isn’t fair either. Easy solution- put a transaction fee on every single financial market transaction on any trade that’s made that is for less than a year. (When playing Monopoly- there are no derivatives, flash trades, or options and you have to wait your turn to act).

Having access to public stock markets- and diversifying risk for large corporations is a huge competitive advantage, but the practice of letting those companies allow a few executives to make decisions like laying off workers to boost share prices – putting the costs of unemployment on the U.S. taxpayer- it’s time to put a halt to it. We need to tie the fortunes of the traders to the fortunes of the workers that they are exploiting at a ridiculous rate. We have to link pay to performance and stock values to real value- not the whims of Standard and Poor’s if we want to see a system that will continue to function. The alternative is riots and anarchy.

Yes, there can still be winners and losers in life- but, the proportion and scale needs to change. Monopoly is fine to play with a few friends for a few hours- but, it doesn’t work as a system to run the planet. It’s time to change the game.